


The Ballad of Roses and Gold

by marsellia_rose



Series: The Bitter Suite [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:12:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsellia_rose/pseuds/marsellia_rose
Summary: They were never really in a relationship. They just sort of existed together, helping each other out no matter what.A look at Ryan and Ray, and who they were before they had the Fake AH Crew.





	

They were never really in a relationship. They just sort of existed together, helping each other out no matter what. 

They’d always been the closest. Ray was the first person Ryan had told that before Los Santos- before the Vagabond- he’d been the Mad King. 

He hadn’t told him immediately. But Ryan had been the last to join, a mercenary going by the name of Vagabond. Ray had joined only just before him, a broke kid who wasn’t from Los Santos, who didn’t like to talk about why he could snipe as well as he could.

They’d sort of bonded, if only just through a quiet understanding that they had both done things no one should talk about.

They spent a lot of quiet nights and early mornings together. Driving out to the edge of the city, shooting at nothing. It was in these quiet, in between hours that Ryan first mentioned it.

“Before Los Santos I lived in Austin, Texas.” A quiet admission to having had a life before Vagabond.

Ray was quiet for a moment, before nodding. “I lived in New York City.” 

Ryan sighed. “Have you ever heard of the Mad King?” It was a rhetorical question, realistically. Everyone had heard of the Mad King, of his reign of terror on Austin, Texas. Of the psycho who had buried people alive, chopped them up and scattered their remains across the city like some sort of twisted scavenger hunt. Of a city so very afraid, of being unable to even find a trace of the madman who was controlling the city. 

He told him about wiping out an entire SWAT team, of leaving gifts of human skulls for the mayor to find at his desk, of painting the inside of his office red with blood, designs of crowns smeared across the walls.

About having been a quiet man who fixed computers for a living in a city full of criminals. About losing everything, and watching as the people in power grew more and more corrupt. About having proof, having stolen it from the computers he was hired to fix, but no one, not the cops or anyone else believing him.

About deciding to punish an entire city.

About adopting the persona of a mad man to protect himself.

And so Ray shared in kind.

He told him about being young and poor, watching his dad drink away his life and his mom work too many jobs to try and get by. About being hungry more often than not, and about never really fitting in.

He told him about moving out at 18, trying to make it on his own, and instead ending up homeless and afraid. About stealing food to survive, and shaky hands as he lived on the streets in the bad parts of town.

About inheriting a sniper rifle when his father died suddenly- alcohol poisoning, and realistically he hadn’t been surprised- and realizing he was a natural, that he could practically make his shots blind. About selling his services to whoever would pay, working for people he’d never met and doing things he couldn’t possibly be proud of.

He told him about suddenly having more money than he knew what to do with. About helping his mom retire, and then getting into drugs.

About realizing that most of the drugs made it harder to shoot, and quitting them all.

About buying a suit and a satin mask, getting his own, custom sniper, about taking on the persona of the Red Assassin, a silent killer, the sort who did the things no one wanted to talk about, no one wanted to admit happened. 

They drove home, then, and shared newspaper clippings. Stories of dead politicians and murders in the night and things that looked like they’d come out of a horror movie. 

They shared guns, too. Ryan pulled out an ebony revolver, gold inlay in the shape of a crown, and told Ray about custom gold bullets and deaths for dramatic effect. About keeping the city in suspense, about keeping it in terror.

Ray pulled out a sniper, not hot pink like the one he used now, but black ebony and garnet inlay, beautifully detailed roses coming up the side, a custom diamond scope. About titanium bullets and leaving a single red rose behind at every major killing, about velvet suits and being nothing more than a ghost story used to spook politicians into doing what others wanted. 

And Ryan talked about being tired, too tired to continue. About moving cities and realizing he needed a new name, about buying a skull mask and a leather jacket and putting away his red jacket and the Crown. About throwing knives and new guns and adopting a silent but deadly persona, about taking on the name Vagabond and being a mercenary for hire. 

And Ray talked about not wanting to follow orders anymore, wanting to kill for someone not corrupt. About burning suits and moving across state lines, buying hoodies and getting a new rifle, hot pink and completely ridiculous. About figuring out how to be the kid he never got to be, while still being a deadly killer. About smoking pot because it helped take the edge of things, made the Red Assassin feel like a fuzzy dream. 

It was in these shared moments that a bond formed, a bond between killers of opportunity and killers of need, people who’d never starting killing for pleasure. Those who had grown to love it and couldn’t stop, but those who remembered what life was like before their first kill. 

They talked about their first kills, too. Ryan talked about a man named Edgar, about going after the mayor first, a man who had his hands in every bad thing that happened in the city, about no one wanting to believe their mayor was a pedophile. 

About burying him alive so deep in the ground no one would ever find him.

About him still being in the ground.

About knowing that what he had done was wrong and yet feeling like he had finally done right, feeling like he had rid the world of some evil, and knowing that now that he’d started he’d never be able to stop. About shaky hands as he realized he’d started himself down a different path, and a fear inside at knowing it was a path he liked.

And Ray told him about offering to kill someone for $30 and getting 30 grand instead, about not realizing just how much money was involved, about not realizing how much it’d be like a video game. About realizing four hours too late that he’d killed a person, and throwing up from the lack of guilt he felt over it. About realizing that he didn’t have it in him to feel guilty, and understanding how much more money he could make because of it. 

In these moments, the time in between when they were the Fake AH Crew, they fell in love. 

It was not a good love, not the sort built to last. But it was the sort that healed old wounds.

It was the sort that filled in the spaces in between.


End file.
